Teaching English to Young Learners: What should you do when your students make errors while doing their speaking?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

What should you do when your students make errors while doing their speaking?

Children have a tendency to overgeneralize the grammar rules when they are learning English as their native language (Brown, 2000). One classic example of generalizations occurs with the use of past tense. For example, I readed the book. I writed my name on it.
Overgeneralization can also occur when a learner takes rules from his first language and applies them to a second or foreign language. For example, an Indonesian – speaking child learning English might say, I usually eat rice fried, instead of I usually eat fried rice.

To handle this kind of error, you can try these ways:

Model your students the correct response rather than telling them that they are wrong.

For example:
T: What does she do at 6:00?
S: She do her homework at 6:00.
T: She does her homework at 6:00. (repeat your student's answer and correct it in the same time). Yes, she does her homework at 6:00. (repeat the correct one once again and emphasize the word does). Let's look at another picture. Tommy, what does he do at 7:00?
S': He do Karate.
T: He does Karate. Yes, he does Karate. (you can use a puppet, Winston) Winston, can you help us?
W: (change your voice into a different one) Yes, I like to help.
T: Winston, what does he do at 8:00?
W: He does his English homework.
T: Good, Winston. All right everyone, what does he do at 8:00?
Ss: He does his English homework.
T: Very good. Again please...
SS: He does his English homework.

By doing this, the error has been corrected and re – modeled without embarrassing any of your students. Just provide a model that the students can copy. If it is possible, focus on one type of error only. Responding too many errors can discourage students from communicating and talking.

Do the peer corrections

Guide your students to do the peer corrections. Provide them with examples of correcting their friends' work. Just focus on one simple thing first, for example the use of the capital letters. Of course, after letting them do the peer correction, you have to do the correction again... However, at least it will make them be more aware in writing words that the first letter of the words need to be written in capital letters.

posted by Ellen @ 3:30 AM

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